Gay marriages United in legal limbo | The Oregonian

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Gay marriages United in legal limbo
After the emotional high of getting married, couples will face laws and financial ramifications that may take attorneys, accountants and financial experts years to figure out

03/07/04

Marital status is a significant factor in everything from the taxes you pay to your pension benefits to who decides to pull the plug on your life-sustaining machines.

So Multnomah County's recognition of gay and lesbian marriages last week sent attorneys, tax accountants and financial planners back to their books to try to make sense of the situation for clients, many of whom were lining up at the county administrative center for marriage licenses.

The federal government and the state of New York don't recognize same-sex marriage, but the state of Massachusetts, the city of San Francisco and now, Multnomah County, do. What those and other jurisdictions do in the next few weeks and months will have a major legal and financial impact, not to mention its purely emotional firepower.

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